Garrison Days
by castlestormed
Summary: Snippets of the kids' Galaxy Garrison days: Hunk keeps things together, Pidge plods on with a purpose, Lance tears through life with the audacity of a trainwreck, and Keith struggles to make sense of the world. [genfic; pre-Canon; occasionally features a very put-upon Commander Iverson]
1. We were only talking (Lance)

(a/n: The following are a series of oneshots/character sketches based off tumblr user alloftheprompts's prompt set#781. The first two chapters are a bit sketchy and will endure rewrites at some point; if you're looking for something with a bit more going on, I suggest skipping over to the Hunk and Keith chapters.

That said, enjoy!)

* * *

 **We were only talking.**

 **(Lance)**

Lance tried not to fidget. He had a good, strong, devil-may-care stance going on right now that fidgeting would just ruin and he couldn't have that. Arms folded tight behind his back, feet planted firmly apart and chin up for a cool-as-ice stare, he stood his ground and bore the sharp reprimanding that he was 100% sure he didn't deserve.

Play the big man, don't say anything.

"Got anything to say for yourself, McClain?"

They always had to ask, didn't they?

"No, sir," Lance said. His reprimander - a flight instructor - turned on his heel. " - except that I _totally_ would have made that jump if you didn't interrupt me," he continued, and a chorus of groans welled up from behind him. Offended, he turned on the lineup of his classmates and insisted, "What! I WOULD have!"

"Lance..." One of the trainees was giving him a panicked look, gesturing for him to stop. Lance ignored him and faced front. The flight instructor had a look on his face that Lance was familiar with - a mix of frustration, weariness and irritation.

"I interrupted because you were arguing with your co-pilot," said the instructor. To his credit, he actually sounded like he was willing to humor Lance.

"Huh? No, we were just talking," Lance said, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"You made Morales cry, McClain."

"I wasn't crying!" interjected Morales' suspiciously tearful voice from somewhere behind the student lineup.

Lance grinned and opened his arms, palm up. "See? It was probably just dust. Ain't that right, Morales?"

"Shut up, McClain! We are _not_ on speaking terms anymore!"

Lance winced and the instructor cleared his throat.

" _Be_ that as it may..." The senior officer leveled a stern expression at him, and Lance tried to convince himself that it didn't make his confidence drop a bit. "You know very well that this was an exercise in cooperation, _not_ flight acrobatics -"

"Like hell it wasn't, Sir! That terrain was _rough_!"

"- and you were supposed to get through it _with your co-pilot -_ "

"Yeah, _that's_ why we were _talking -_ "

" _Morales_ was talking." The instructor snapped. " _You_ were shooting your mouth off and doing your own thing, which need I point out not only caused you to demoralize your partner, McClain, it cost you your _entire. Mission_."

His self-satisfied smirk wilted, despite his best efforts to keep face. By the end of the reprimand, his gaze had dropped to the ground, to a point somewhere between his feet.

"You have to know that this sort of behavior isn't doing you any favors. I hear you wanted to be a fighter pilot - " Lance tensed over that, over the way the other trainees behind him whispered and laughed in not-so-flattering ways. " - well, can't say I don't respect that. By all means, _aspire_ \- maybe you'll get there in a couple of years; really, it's all up to you. What I can't forgive, though, is this _attitude_ of yours. You lookin' down on cargo, boy? Well, _wake up._ Right now, it's what you are. And if you can't accept that, then maybe you ought to just wash out and do something else with your life instead of stickin' around here and wasting my goddamn _time_. "

As far as "I am disappointed in your lack of commitment" speeches went, Lance felt this one deserved a 9. Well, maybe that was too generous - an 8, then. This particular flight instructor was an okay guy. He wasn't a big name pilot, nobody Lance wanted to impress, but he had been more patience than most. Lance never could get along with straight-laced, by the book types, so he knew what to watch for before that wall of patience would come crumbling down.

The reprimanding finally came to an end on a stern but somewhat resigned note:

"You're not taking any more simulator tests until the next week rolls in, got that?"

Lance gritted his teeth. Concentrated - again - on not fidgeting. His palms were way too dry.

"I said _got that_ , Cadet?"

"Loud n' clear, Sir," he managed to bite out.


	2. Are you done ranting? (Pidge)

**Are you done ranting?**

 **(Pidge)**

Pidge didn't appreciate being pulled out of her thoughts when her thoughts revolved around the search (and possible rescue) of Matt and her father, but Lance had made it impossible to be ignored. He had laid himself out on the table she was using, right on top of her papers, and went into a rapidfire monologue that completely went over her head.

"What the _hell_ , Lance," she'd snapped, just about ready to fend him off with her garrison-issued tablet. Lucky for him, Hunk decided to show up and had such a baleful expression on that Pidge begrudgingly backed off.

"Sorry, he's... acting out," Hunk explained. When he sat down at the table, he had the presence of mind to gently pry his friend off of Pidge's things and distract him with a candy bar.

"I can see that," Pidge said. It took some effort not to snap at him. Her papers were _wrinkled_ but that wasn't Hunk's fault. "Do I even want to know?"

Hunk sighed a long-suffering sigh. "He got chewed out by one of the instructors again."

"Which one?"

"Languages."

Lance grumbled around his candy bar. "Hate that class. The only language _I_ need to know is the language of _aerodynamics_."

"It's still a require class though, Lance," Hunk pointed out. "Some effort wouldn't be the worst thing in the world? It'd get the instructor off your back for sure."

"She called me an _idiot_ in front of the _entire class_ , Hunk. What kind of a teacher _does_ that?"

"Military instructors," Pidge interjected, grimly thinking back to when 'Katie Holt' had been banned, "are soldiers first, teachers second, and your friend last." She frowned at Lance and adjusted her personal assessment of him. She knew he was petty, but she didn't think he was spoiled too. "You won't survive out here if you don't know how to compromise, y'know. You're a good pilot but they kind of expect people to be well-rounded around here. If you can't keep up, they're gonna cut you out - is that what you want?"

She half-expected Lance to get fired up again, but instead he frowned back at her and transferred that stare to a point on the ceiling. It was easy to see from the get-go that he was a heart-on-his-sleeve sort of guy - middle child of a group of six children, according to his file, which might be taken as a tongue-in-cheek explanation for his loud antics.

If Pidge was completely honest, she wasn't too happy to be stuck with the class clown. Her plan had been to coast through her classes just long enough to get the information she needed on the Kerberos mission. She hadn't decided what to do yet after she got her hands on that intel... Wash out? Graduate? But either way, she did _not_ want to draw any more attention to herself than necessary. Unfortunately, she was stuck on a team with a guy who provoked attention as naturally and easily as breathing.

He was a very... animated person - even now, when he was being quiet for once. Pidge could practically see the gears turning in his head as he considered the ceiling.

Of course, this was _Lance_ so silence never lasted very long and he was the one to break it.

"You think I'm a good pilot...?"

She blinked - of all the things she said, he chose to focus on _that?_

"Well... Sure?" she ventured, unsure of how to read his growing smile. "You're not half-bad or anything."

"For an idiot?"

Her mood went from thoughtful to unimpressed. "I never said that. Besides, weren't you, like, second in your class back at flight school or something?"

"The other guy washed out so _technically_ that makes me first," Lance said smugly.

"Whatever, _honor student._ Hunk's got it right here. Getting into the Garrison doesn't give you license to slack off."

"Wasn't planning to. I just really hate dealing with crappy instructors - _don't_ even try to defend that witch, dude," he said abruptly, with a stern glance at Hunk, whose mouth was half open at the start of a sentence. "I don't care if she's got a million problems piled on her shoulders, she's got no right to take them out on _me_."

"Wasn't going to?" Hunk said carefully. "I _just_ wanted to point out that you maybe should have backed off today. On account of it being half your fault." He cleared his throat. "You should have been paying more attention to the lecture instead of oggling the girl in front of you."

"I was _not_ \- !"

Pidge sighed as Lance's end of the conversation wrapped up in a series of indignant noises and hand gestures. She wasn't sure how Hunk bore with it, but the larger trainee was a mass of stolid calm, bearing through the ridiculousness until Lance gathered himself up and stormed away in much the same manner that he had arrived in - mixing grumbles and curses under his breath in a way that Pidge found difficult to follow.

"It's kind of weird that he's failing Languages when he's practically fluent in, like, three," Hunk mused.

"Does that include _aerodynamics_ ," Pidge asked, which brought a grin to the other trainee's face.

"No sorry, make that four." His gaze swept the table, taking in the mess of books and papers, and the grin on his face turned apologetic. "Sorry you had to deal with that, by the way. Lance is kiiiind of a drama queen."

"Understatement." She poked at the candy bar that Lance had abandoned on one of her papers, grimacing at the smudge of oil it left underneath. "Don't worry about it. I've... Uh, wish I could say I've dealt with worse, but I haven't, actually."

That brought out a chuckle. "You'll get used to it. Lance is a decent guy if you give him a chance."

"Sounds like you've got a lot of practice being his wingman."

"Oh you don't know the half of it." Hunk lifted himself to his feet and pushed the candy bar towards her. "You can have that if you want. Made it myself and I don't like seeing food go to waste. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check on Lance to make sure he isn't causing any _more_ trouble."

"Sure. See you in class."

She picked up the candy bar as she watched Hunk's hulking figure disappear into the nearest intersection. A taste of it left a brief impression of cinnamon and granola on her tongue, with a hint of something nutty.

Hm, good stuff. Almost worth the interruption.


	3. We had a reason that day (Hunk)

**We had a reason that day.**

 **(Hunk)**

Hunk didn't think there could be anything worse than getting caught in the middle of doing something stupid and being sent to the principal's office, _but there was_ \- and that was getting caught and being sent to the principal's office after you _thought_ you had gotten away with doing something stupid.

As usual, he blamed Lance. He blamed Lance inwardly because even though he really, really, _really_ wanted to give Lance a piece of his mind right now, it was bad form to do so in front of authority figures. Lance being to blame or not, they were in the same boat right now. If there was anything he picked up from his classes in strategy it was that when you were facing an opposing force, your team had to present a strong, united front otherwise things would go to shit for _everyone_ very, very quickly.

Which was why when Pidge was about to say something, Hunk interrupted as loudly as he could.

"W-we had a very good reason for being at the city in the middle of curfew!" His mind raced through ideas as he felt the sweat beading at his temple.

Pidge was frowning at him for the interruption but chose to take a step back in the conversation, which was a relief. Hunk didn't have a fully formed opinion yet on the third member of their team. The three of them had only been a "team" for a few weeks and the only thing he'd picked up on thus far was that Pidge was... private. Friendly in a general manner - and a reliable group member for the most part - but the kid tended to beg off of any after-class activities once official class times were over. Whether this was because of shyness or wariness or just a natural tendency for being a loner, Hunk didn't know yet and he was fine with it, really. Pidge would warm up to them eventually because they were pretty much spending all of their class times together _anyway_ \- but Lance? Lance had (generally, usually) good intentions, but he was also impatient. Lance tended to want things when he wanted them and not before or after otherwise it didn't make sense to him. That part about Lance was a Problem.

This moment right here was the direct result of Lance being impatient and Hunk just wanted to _murder him -_ but that could be done later. Not now. Now he had to do damage control.

"It was, uh... It was... for a..." Hunk's eyes darted from object to object in the room, before they rested on a bunch of battered-looking files on the Principal's table. "We were... doing a thing - _project!_ We were doing a project. For class."

"A project," Commander Iverson repeated, and even though the tough old codger's face was a brewing storm held at bay by the thinnest string of patience, Hunk nodded and put as much earnestness as he could manage into his performance.

"Extra credit, sir," he said with more confidence. "More of a case study, actually. We wanted to prove that the, uhhhh - ummmm - _system_ \- yes, a system. It's a system that we developed. We wanted to prove that it's more efficient than... than the ones we use here at the Garrison. Cause, you know, we think ours is better - _not_ that Garrison tech is bad, sir! No! Nononono _no_ , Garrison tech is top notch stuff! It's just, like, um. Ours. W-we put a lot of neat stuff into it?"

Iverson had been in a relatively stable state of skepticism up until halfway through Hunk's explanation. The impatience simmered again over the stuttering and the vague fillers.

"What are you _talking_ about, boy?"

Anyone could tell that he was at the brink of an explosion.

So of course this was the moment Lance chose to intervene.

"Oh _you know_ ," the pilot-in-training said in a voice that was as smooth as silk but only half as classy. His stance was confident even though Hunk knew he was pulling this all from out of his ass. In situations where Hunk wouldn't have dared to jump in, Lance barreled straight through. "We're talking about that outdated, unserviced heap of junk that you call a _flight simulator_."

"Ex _cuse me? "_

Hunk ripped his eyes away from Iverson's rapidly purpling face when he was absolutely certain that the senior officer's attention was 100% focused on Lance. He saw that Lance was calm, smug even, and that was usually reassuring in life-or-death situations, but right now Hunk was too busy trying to prevent the full weight of the law from slamming onto their shoulders - something that Lance seemed to not get.

 _What are you doing?!_ Hunk mouthed when he managed to get the pilot's attention.

Lance flapped a dismissive hand back at him. _I got this_ , it meant - but Hunk vehemently disagreed.

"All the instruments in that thing are _ancient._ How'd you expect us to compete with cadets from other schools?" Lance continued with a dismissive handwave. "We get that garrison funding has to go elsewhere so we thought - hey! Why not solve our own problem? We're sure as hell _smart_ enough to."

"So you - what?" The threat of an explosion had simmered down but Iverson's patience was still thinning with every word, "Made yourselves a new flight simulator, did we?"

"If we had at least two years, sure," Pidge spoke up, head tilting in a way that made Hunk blink. Pidge was calm too - but not like Lance with his overabundance of confidence. Pidge was rational calm. Sensible calm. A kind of calm that was remotely believable. "We wanted something we could finish _now_ though, so we just improved the nav panel. That's what we were testing out in the city - "

"But _after hours,_ Gunderson?" Apparently Iverson was impervious to this type of calm. "These excuses keep getting flimsier and flimsier - "

"We needed somewhere densely populated to test, sir," Pidge pressed on.

"Then why not the dorms? High body count, located within school grounds too. None of you geniuses thought of that? And, what, a _night club_ was the obvious choice? _Spare_ me." Iverson began to write something into the clipboard tilted over his lap. Hunk didn't like the focused way the senior officer seemed to be slashing his Ts and puncturing his Is.

"Sir - " he began, and his thoughts _scattered_ over the scathing look that the Commander directed at him.

"That's enough out of you." The Commander's tone was deceptively calm again. His head moved just the slightest bit to capture all of them under a withering glare. "That's enough out of _all_ of you. You're all spending a month of your freetime on _cleaning duty_ for that damn flight sim you're so stuck on "improving". Maybe the added intimacy will be just what you sods need to perfect your little project. DISMISSED."

One would have been hard-pressed to find a more dispirited round of "Yessir"s. The three of them found their way back to their bunk, which was the only safe haven any student had in the Garrison. The heavy silence that had accompanied them since their sentencing was dispelled by a sigh from Lance.

"Well this _sucks_ ," he began - and all the pent up emotion that Hunk had held in just ignited. Hunk balled his hands into fists as words exploded out of his mouth.

"Oh _shut up_ , Lance! I don't want to sound like a five year old but THIS WAS ALL. YOUR. FAULT!"

"Excuse me?!" Lance had the nerve to sound affronted.

"You heard me!" Hunk got up from his bunk to face the pilot. "Let's go out to the city tonight, guys! We _totally_ won't get caught or anything!" he said in falsetto, eyes going sharp when he finished. "Well guess what, Lance? We got caught! We're getting punished for it! I bet it'll even go on our permanent records or something!"

"Probably not," Pidge interjected. " It's more of a minor disciplinary issue than anything- "

"Not the point!" He punctuated the phrase with a stomp and Pidge's eye level dropped away with a muttered "Okaaaay" before sinking completely behind a laptop screen.

Hunk's temper deflated soon after because he wasn't built for sustained negativity (and throwing a tantrum was pretty embarrassing no matter what the circumstances were). Mid-rant he'd noticed that Lance had finally adopted some semblance of guilt for his actions; he was slumped where he sat and staring at his shoes, sullen and quiet. Hunk sighed.

"I just... didn't want to get into trouble, okay?" he began more calmly, one hand reaching for the back of his neck. "We could have visited the city over the weekend. I... actually, I have no idea why I even agreed to go with you guys. Did we even _have_ a reason or...?"

Pidge sighed over the clacking of fingers gliding over a keyboard. "Someone told flyboy here that he didn't have the balls to sneak past security. I wanted to go because there was a one-day sale I wanted to take advantage of. And you..." A small, considering wrinkle appeared between the round glasses that reflected a glowing computer screen. "As usual, you tagged along because you wanted to make sure we got back in one piece."

Lance grumbled to himself, shifting in his seat. "Dumbasses were pegging me as the guy who's only good on the combat sims. It was a matter of pride. "

"They're just mad 'cause you smoke them at every practice session," Pidge soothed.

"I know right? Had to shut them up."

"Wait wait wait." Hunk frowned. "So if the point of this whole thing was just to get past the security bots... Why the night club?"

Lance waggled an eyebrow at him. "Why _not_ the night club?"

Hunk stared at his friend, taking in his smarmy grin. He thought back to that evening and most of his memories were colored in bright shades of pink and purple. That was his first time at a night club.

"It just cost us a month of free time," he mused.

"So, worth it?"

Hunk went back to the pink and purple lights. Then he winced as the more recent memories in Iverson's office pierced through them. "No idea. Ask me again after a month."

"What about after less than a month?" asked Pidge. The typing had stopped before either of them realized it, and the shortest member of the group was now looking up at them.

Pidge rarely grinned like that so it was taking a while for Hunk to get used to it. Lance, recognizing a kindred spirit, leaned forward conspiratorially. "What're you scheming, Ace?"

With theatrical care, Pidge turned the laptop screen around so that they could see what was on it. It was a clutter of windows, most full of code that was well beyond Hunk's grasp.

"Okay, cool," Lance said slowly as Hunk's eyes drifted over to a window with what appeared to be schematics, "but some of us don't speak computer as good as you. Translate?"

At around the same time, Hunk's eyes widened as he realized what he was staring at. "The code is way over my head too, but these designs... Gunderson, is this what I think it is?"

Instead of replying, a giddy Pidge turned to Lance. "Do you remember that thing you said about the flight sim being crappy?"

"Back at Iverson's office? Sure... oh." Lance's frown eased into a cross between surprised and impressed. "No way. Don't tell me this is..."

"Yep." Pidge tapped the screen. "All your stupid showboating reminded me of this old project I was working on with my brother. Never finished it but I have enough to work out some kind of prototype for our "extra credit assignment". I'm gonna need some help with the hardware though -"

"Ooh! Me! I can help!" Hunk exclaimed, as the drawings on screen caused ideas to bloom in his imagination. "Your schematics are a little crude but I've worked with worse. I might wanna tweak it a little here and there, y'know, to optimize it and stuff? That okay?"

"That's more than okay, big guy. I was counting on it," Pidge reassured.

"What about me?" Lance cut in, not about to be left out. "I wanna help."

"You have the most flight experience out of all of us, McClain, so you're on troubleshooting duty."

"Awyeah!" he crowed, throwing a few victory punches into the air. "Hey how mad do you think Iverson will be when he realizes that our bullshit story's not bullshit at all?"

"Super nova mad. But he'll have to pretend he's not because, you know, propriety." Hunk, initially grinning, sagged a little. "No guarantee we'll get some days shaved off our sentence though. I mean, he _knows_ it was a bullshit excuse. He knows that _we_ know it was a bullshit excuse. It 100% _is_ and always will be a bullshit excuse."

Pidge shrugged and turned the laptop back around to continue typing. "That's true, but Lance was right about the flight sim. Really outdated. We'll be doing a service if we can get the ball rolling on updating it."

"Also more importantly, we'll be stickin' it to Iverson," added Lance, nudging himself over to where Pidge was sitting. "Hey, do we have a timeline for this thing?"

"I think we can get something together in a couple of days. I wanna build the prototype as fast as possible so... we're gonna need parts."

Hunk nodded absently, half listening to them, half listening to the ideas in his head as they wandered off into tangents about the schematics from Pidge's computer. Parts, huh? They could raid the junk from the shop class and pawn a chipset or two from the guys over at the tech department. There were some parts that couldn't simply be foraged for, though. So that meant they had to buy them.

He blinked and inhaled sharply.

Pidge, avoiding his eye, said casually: "You know, I think that store I went to extended their sale period - "

"We are not sneaking out again. No. Nu-uh."

"But Hunk -"

" _No_."


	4. He's full of (sh)it (Keith)

**He's full of (sh)it.**

 **(Keith)**

It took exactly thirty days for the novelty of the Garrison to lose its charm on Keith - which incidentally was also the same number of days it took for him to find himself standing in the middle of the office at block A-34.

The commander was hunched over his desk and rubbing circles into either side of his temple. It was nine in the morning yet he looked like he wished the day was over. After a minute or so of massaging his forehead, he inhaled deeply and forced the breath out of his mouth in a dramatic, protracted gust.

"Stand at attention when you're in the presence of a superior officer, son," he said.

Keith stood at attention, resisting the desire to roll his eyes. It would have been painful to do, given a rapidly swelling black eye.

When the Commander finally deigned to give him his full attention, the frown on his face was a scruitinizing one.

"Kogane, was it? You know why you're here?"

"I got into fight," Keith said. And because he couldn't resist: "I didn't start it. I only reacted to protect myself."

"That's not what the other guy said." The commander was a large man. His chair creaked with effort when he leaned into the backrest. "And that wasn't my question."

"You asked me why I was here - "

"Here as in here at the Galaxy Garrison, not here in my office."

Keith frowned.

The Commander frowned back.

"Your recommendation letter was written by one of our finest graduates," he said, then paused. "God rest his soul."

Keith tried to keep his face neutral but was pretty sure he failed. That last statement threatened to unpack a lot of things he wasn't prepared to deal with just yet. Thankfully, the Commander broke the silence by rifling through the papers on his desk. He pulled out a sheet that had two horizontal fold marks near the middle and held it out before him.

"Do you know what this says about you?" he asked as he squinted at the paper while patting for something in his breast pocket. The paper caught a ray of light from one of the open windows, briefly revealing the writing on the reverse side and the neat signature at the bottom of the page.

Keith averted his gaze to the ground and ignored a stab pain that probably came from his eye. "No, sir."

"Didn't think to sneak a peek?"

He gritted his teeth at that, and clenched the fists behind his back. Why did people expect him to act like a punk? Was it because he had decided to grow out his hair? Because he thought small talk was a waste of time? He liked to think that he knew at least the basic tenets of respect - do onto others and all that crap. Maybe he liked to challenge authority from time to time but that was only with anyone who did something so mind-numbingly _stupid_ that he just couldn't stand by and watch the injustice unfold. He had encountered many people like that while he was in the system.

There had been a few good ones, though, and the one that stuck around the longest... well obviously he had Keith's total and undeniable respect. People who got Keith's total and undeniable respect never had to worry about Keith trespassing on their privacy. Obviously.

The commander cleared his throat and Keith looked up to meet the end of a very dry stare that peered at him through a pair of delicate-looking reading glasses.

"It says here that you're a serious fellow. Didn't think it meant humorless too," said the Commander, and Keith reddened with sudden understanding. "About half the applications I go through comes with a letter of rec that's been resealed. Hell, I couldn't resist a peek myself when I was just a cadet. Too curious for my own good." He shrugged. "It doesn't really impact your chances of getting in. That sort of childish behavior is easy to weed out in the early stages of the program."

The commander's chair creaked again as he leaned back with a sigh.

"Shirogane pegged you as a natural flier," he continued. "Raw talent. Keen instincts. We saw as much from your performance in class these past few days. You seem to enjoy it as well, am I wrong?"

"No sir," Keith said with some hesitation. It was kind of weird to realize that his teachers had noticed that he was having fun on the simulators. It felt like an invasion of privacy somehow.

He cleared his throat and steeled himself for what he wanted to say next: "You have a 'but' coming up though, right? I'm talented but... impulsive? Hardheaded?" People seemed to enjoy pegging him as this or that.

The commander tossed Shiro's recommendation letter back onto his desk and rested steepled fingers above his chest. The tiredness had returned to his gaze. "Nah, I'd say you're full of shit."

Keith blinked.

Frowned again.

"What?"

"Gone deaf now? I said you're full of shit," the commander grumbled, sounding annoyed. "I asked you why you're here, attending the Garrison. Obviously you want to be a pilot, yes? On a damn scholarship and recommended by Takashi Shirogane no less." He flicked his fingers at the letter on his desk, driving that knife in deeper. "He references your attitude but claimed that you were driven enough to remain focused on your studies - to be open to learning the discipline that is necessary for interstellar travel. Do you think I've seen proof of that in the month you've been around? Or is that brand new shiner of yours your crowning moment of achievement?"

Keith clenched his jaw and tried - then failed - to hold the commander's straightforward gaze. His eye throbbed, but by now it was obvious that the pain wasn't coming from there.

"Sir," Keith began, then stopped. What was there to say to that? Sorry? But he wasn't sure if he meant it enough for it to leave his mouth.

Obviously he wanted to be a pilot. _Obviously_. There were papers and everything to prove it. He liked flying, he was good at it, and had the potential to get even better at it.

Shiro had said as much, hadn't he?

"Technically this is your first offense of this kind so I'm obligated to let you off with just a warning," said the commander's voice somewhere in the background. "I realize that you must be dealing with... things. It hasn't been that long since the incident, after all."

He nodded numbly and started when the commander patted his shoulder. He hadn't even realized that the other man had stood up from his desk.

"You're on cleaning duty for the next month, alright? I suggest you use that time to get your head on straight. Remember why you're here. Find that focus that Shirogane claimed you had. I can't think of a better way to honor his memory than by becoming what he believed you could be."

"Sir," Keith said, because there was nothing else to say to that.

He left the office with a gaze so heavy that all he could see was the path in front of him. If he stumbled into a few people along the way, he didn't notice and nobody stopped him.

Despite the shakedown of that morning, he skipped his next class and found himself standing on the building roofdeck, staring out into the vast vermilion landscape that surrounded the Garrison.

He thought that things would finally come into focus here but of course it wouldn't be that easy. Had it felt right to attend the Garrison just because Shiro had recommended it so enthusiastically? Because here he was, and there were times that it _did_ feel right - like sitting in a cockpit that was modeled after the insides of a standard spaceflight vehicle, or, oddly enough, out here on the roofdeck - and there were other times where it just felt... not right. Which encompassed pretty much everything else about the Galaxy Garrison.

Why couldn't things make sense?

Maybe the commander was right about him.

Maybe he really was just full of shit, wasting everyone's time out of indecisiveness.

Maybe Shiro was wrong about him. The Kerberos mission failed due to pilot error, right? Which meant that even a guy like Shiro could be wrong.

So maybe... maybe the commander was right, Shiro was wrong, and Keith ought to listen to his gut again.

His gut was telling him, Maybe you can just leave?

It was an interesting line of thought. He considered it. And the longer he considered it, the more it felt right.


End file.
